Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Crickets

I was beginning to wonder, as summer has rolled along, where the crickets were. Nights spent porch-sitting were oddly quiet as the Quarter Acre's insect population seemed to be entirely absent -- with the exception of mosquitoes.

I'm not sure what it is about memory and knowledge but I always remember, and associate summer and crickets. This is the first year I've been conscious that crickets emerge later in the summer. Or, perhaps, there was something different about this summer -- it has not gotten truly hot until recently. I am certainly no entomologist but I now believe that perhaps cricket activity is linked to temperature -- because with the hotter days and nights has come a cacophony of nocturnal insect noises. Over the past week or so, the chirping and trilling of crickets have been deafening. It's a welcome addition to the summer porch lifestyle -- increasing the sense that we are somewhere other than our backyard and lending a more exotic flair to the mellow proceedings.

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